No. 4 Ole Miss has climbed the polls, but its competition only gets tougher this week

Mike Bianco is proud of Ole Miss for winning its series against Texas A&M, but said his team didn’t play great baseball.

OXFORD — Mike Bianco was proud of the way Ole Miss played and competed against Texas A&M this past weekend.

He liked that the Rebels’ bullpen came through in high-leverage situations and the offense put together a strong nine-inning effort on Saturday, which helped them take the series from the 15th-ranked Aggies.

But he remains rather realistic about what occurred.

“We won two out of three this weekend but we didn’t play great,” Bianco said. “The first two days offensively, we didn’t do much until the end of the game. Our starting pitching was the worst that it’s been all year. There are some things we didn’t handle, the running game, really well. There are always things to work on.”

“(Treat it) like it’s one game at a time,” junior Chase Cockrell said. “Just not making it bigger than it is. Just staying with what the coaches have told us all year, that we’re playing ourselves in the game.”

Ole Miss (22-3) rallied from three-run deficits against the Aggies in its wins on Thursday and Saturday. The Rebels nearly rallied from a five-run deficit on Friday. So they exerted a lot of energy and absorbed some body shots from a top-15 team.

Ole Miss’ bullpen, Parker Caracci in particular, emerged as the dominant storyline from the weekend and rightfully so. The bullpen pitched 14 1/3 innings and allowed five runs.

Will Ethridge pitched five innings of scoreless relief. Caracci earned two saves, pitched three innings in the series and struck out seven batters.

Dallas Woolfolk stopped the bleeding when he entered the game Saturday and didn’t allow a run, and Greer Holston allowed a run in 2 2/3 innings pitched. The relievers settled things down after the starters’ rough performances.

Ryan Rolison lasted just four innings Thursday and allowed four runs. Brady Feigl pitched 6 1/3 innings Friday but allowed six runs. James McArthur made it through just 1 1/3 innings Saturday.

“One of the things I just spoke to them about is to trust yourself. To not get caught up in strikeouts, ERAs. Just win the game,” Bianco said. “Your job now is to win the game. I think sometimes, they’re so talented and at times through the four weeks there’s been times where success came quicker. A&M, I thought was excellent offensively and really made it hard for strikeouts.

“I think we’ve got to be ourselves, trust our stuff and compete to win the game and that’s it.”

Freshman Jordan Fowler will start against the Golden Eagles. Fowler pitched 2/3 of an inning against the Aggies and allowed two runs. He’s 3-0 this season with a 1.93 ERA but has yet to face a test like Southern Miss (17-5) will provide.

The Golden Eagles rank 27th nationally with a .297 batting average and have hit 26 home runs, which is tied for 22nd.

“Really good club. A top-15 club. A team that hosted a regional last year,” Bianco said. “A team that returns a lot of players off that team. When you look at them, statistically, they look similar to last year. They do all three phases really well.”